


A Conversation from an Alternate Universe

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 19:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In some alternate universe, this conversation happened between Kurt and Blaine.</p>
<p>diverges from canon during 4x22 (“All of Nothing”)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Conversation from an Alternate Universe

**Author's Note:**

> You know, I had one little e-mail exchange with Stoney about us wanting there to have been a particular kind of conversation between Kurt and Blaine in the season finale and one way in theory it could have gone, and then suddenly I found myself having written seven thousand words of squirm-worthy self-indulgence. Well, it’s actually stoney-indulgence, because I wrote it for her. So that’s way better and less personally squirmy, because it’s a gift! Gifts can’t be wrong, right?
> 
> (The short answer to that question? Yes. Yes, they can.)
> 
> I don’t know if this counts as an episode fic or not, though it is set within 4x22. It decidedly diverges from canon instead of living within it. I’m not even sure I’d _want_ it to be canonical, but nonetheless. I wrote a fic based on the season finale. I blame stoney for it, because she is awesome, way moreso than anything I could ever hope to write. :)

“Thank you for inviting us,” Kurt says to Liz as he hugs her goodbye in the doorway to Breadstix at the end of the night. “It was nice to meet you.”

“It was our pleasure,” Liz tells him with a smile. She catches his hands as he pulls away, and the light glints off of her new engagement ring.

“And congratulations,” he adds, admiring how it shines. “It was an honor to be here for your proposal.”

She squeezes his fingers and says with an unexpected touch of intensity, “We’re very glad you were.”

“Good luck,” Jan says to Blaine, rubbing his back before letting him go from his own hug beside them.

The touch looks almost comforting or encouraging, and Kurt has to wonder what Blaine has been telling them. He’s not blind to the way Blaine looks at him or talks to him, he’s not blind to what Blaine _wants_ from him - nor is he blind to how attractive Blaine looks in that jacket - but he’s doing his best to ignore it, like he always does now. It’s the only way for them to be friends, to keep the tone light between them. They might be aware of each other, they might cross the line into flirting sometimes, there might have been that insane and wonderful night at the wedding that wasn’t, but they aren’t together. They can’t forget it.

“Thanks,” Blaine says, and Kurt’s suspicions are raised further by the soft gratitude in Blaine’s voice. He just doesn’t know what to be suspicious of. Has Blaine been talking about their history to Jan and Liz?

It doesn’t matter, Kurt decides, and he puts it out of his mind. Blaine’s life and heart are his own; it doesn’t matter to Kurt how he shares them

“Congratulations,” Kurt says to Jan, and she sweeps him up for a quick, tight hug, too, while Blaine is in Liz’s arms.

“You know, you’re not supposed to tell a woman congratulations when she gets engaged,” Jan says, letting him go and reaching out for her fiancee's hand, “because it supposedly carries the undertone that she’s lucky to have found a man who wants her, but in this case I _am_ the lucky one. Including that she’s not a man at all.”

Liz shakes her head and laughs, and the two of them wave and head off to their car, leaving Kurt alone with Blaine just outside the restaurant’s doors. He and Blaine both watch them walk away.

“Well,” Kurt says after a moment, rocking back on his heels. “I guess I should go.” It’s strange that a part of him still feels off-kilter leaving Blaine’s side; with the calmness between them and in his heart, the ability to be near Blaine without it hurting also reminds him how much he used to like to be there. It takes effort to remind himself that things are so different now, but he manages. He’s gotten very good at it, really, remembering the distance between them. It’s becoming second-nature.

Blaine blinks and shakes his head like he’s coming out of a dream, and he turns back to Kurt. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he offers, hopeful but a little tentative.

“I’m fine,” Kurt says. “It’s just over there.” He points to the dark edge of the lot; he can’t quite see his car, but it’s there.

“I don’t mind,” Blaine says with a smile.

It isn’t worth arguing, even if Kurt’s reaching the point in the night where he’s getting too aware of Blaine, having sat next to him for so long and fielded questions about how _they_ had met. It had been strange - or not strange enough, really, not nearly strange enough - to sit next to him in a booth at Breadstix, passing each other items and bumping elbows from time to time, like they were on a double date, just like it had been not strange enough to have Blaine hold his hand across the table at the Lima Bean when he was worried about his dad.

He has to fight against it not being strange; that’s his greatest enemy, the threat of forgetting. They’re friends now. He can put aside the flutter of his heart at memories of flirty duets, special outfits, and romantic dinners and just act the way he should. They’re friends. It’s what he wants. He doesn’t have to get drawn in. He’s not going to get hurt again, and it’s nice to be able to be close. It’s a relief not to have to fight the part of himself that wants to be.

“Okay.” Kurt starts walking toward his car. At his side, Blaine clears his throat and doesn’t say anything, so Kurt adds, “They seemed nice.”

Blaine nods and side-steps a pothole in the pavement. It brings him nearer, close enough that their arms and hands almost are brushing, and he doesn’t step back. The scent of his aftershave wafts toward Kurt in the cool evening breeze. “Yes. Very. I like them a lot.”

Kurt takes a shallow breath and doesn’t think about Blaine’s fingers. Heat flares up his arm, because they’re so _close_ ; either one of them could just reach out to hold the other’s hand, but he doesn’t look down. They obviously will not be doing that. It’s just a memory and a reaction to Blaine’s proximity. “And the proposal was sweet, if unexpected. I suppose anywhere can be romantic if it has enough meaning, even Breadstix.”

“I’m glad you agree,” Blaine says softly. “I thought it was wonderful.”

“It was.” Kurt thinks of the joy in Jan and Liz’s faces and the applause that filled the restaurant and how happy he is for them instead of acknowledging the tug of yearning deep in his heart. His yearning for that kind of permanent love and commitment, the sweetness of a proposal and all the hope and love it holds doesn’t mean anything in particular. He’s always been a romantic. He’s always wanted it for himself. He’s had that kind of longing since he was a child. It isn’t anything new. Or... specific. No, it’s not specific to all he’d planned to have with Blaine, not anymore. He isn’t letting it be. It just hits him that way sometimes if he’s not careful, like when he hears the wrong song or watches the wrong movie and remembers what _they_ had and were supposed to have. It isn’t a big deal. He’s moved on.

As they wait for a minivan to maneuver in a tight K-turn in front of them, he deliberately does not look over at Blaine in his very, very attractive blazer.

“I really enjoyed hearing about their lives, too,” Blaine says, glancing over at Kurt’s face. Kurt doesn’t look back. “I mean, we’re on the verge of some huge and important changes in the country, toward marriage equality everywhere, but that doesn’t mean we should forget what struggles LGBT people have had. We’ve had it so much easier.” He lets out a relatively humorless laugh. “Not that it was _easy_ , obviously, not for either of us, but at least we could _be_ out.”

Kurt nods. “I know. It’s funny to be grateful for the opportunity to be bullied, but we did get to go to prom together.” He smiles over at Blaine then, just a little, because he has to. He counts both of their proms, despite how hard they were, as victories, victories of self-expression and ultimately victories of love, even if that love is gone between them now.

Blaine smiles back, much more warmly, his eyes doing that soft and melting thing that makes Kurt’s heart stutter, even now, though he doesn’t let himself react outwardly.

As much as he used to love it, Kurt wishes Blaine wouldn’t look at him that way. It makes it all so much harder when he’s trying to be mature and not get swept up in his emotions, both positive and negative. Blaine’s always made him feel so deeply, and it’s hard to keep himself at the appropriate and mature distance from his heart when Blaine’s looking at him and asking so much with his eyes.

But then a little, unhelpful part of him also thinks that if Blaine stops it will probably be harder still, that last remnant of their romance gone.

“Twice,” Blaine says with that happy smile. “And your first prom proposal was at Breadstix, too.”

Kurt doesn’t want to think about it too much, about how excited he’d been to take part in such a high school rite of passage because he could do it with his _boyfriend_ as his _date_ , not to mention the excitement of spending the evening with Blaine in elegant and flattering formal wear. It had been such a happy moment for him. It had felt like the world was finally opening up to him. He’d thought he’d had everything he ever wanted, or at least the start of it.

It turns out he was wrong. At least that it would all happen with Blaine.

“Apparently it’s a gay stereotype,” Kurt says crisply and walks forward as the minivan pulls away.

“Well, I thought it was romantic,” Blaine says. He sounds quietly disappointed, and a quick glance over shows that his face has fallen. “Their proposal... and yours.”

Kurt has no answer to that comment that wouldn’t either hurt him to say or Blaine to hear, because he was _happy_ and now he is _not_ , not in every aspect of his life, all of those childish dreams gone, so he does what’s becoming second nature to him and doesn’t react at all. There’s no point. He gestures to the back of the row of cars. “I’m parked over this way.”

Blaine sighs, his head dropping for a second, before his step quickens so that he’s matching Kurt’s pace again across the pavement. “I’m not going to apologize for thinking it was romantic,” he says more firmly. “And I’m not going to pretend you and I haven’t both thought about marriage and proposals. Us, together, like that.”

It’s good that it’s so dark in this part of the lot, Kurt thinks, because it means if he can’t quite school his face Blaine might not notice. He pretends to search for his keys as they reach his car, like he can’t feel them in the pocket of his pants.

“Kurt,” Blaine says, touching his arm. Kurt looks up, right into those devastatingly emotive eyes. He can see all of Blaine’s somehow still boundless love there, none of it held back, and it’s like a sledgehammer to his chest, slamming into his heart and threatening to take down the walls around him. It’s a fight to hold himself still, to maintain his distance from all of the hurt inside of him. “You know I still want that with you. I still want that to be us.”

Kurt’s breath catches, because he can’t talk about this, especially not when Blaine has been so sweet and attentive. He _can’t_ , there’s no point, he’s not doing this, they can’t go backwards. They can only be friends, and he needs to have that much. But he knows Blaine well enough that he has to give him some answer to stop the conversation; Blaine holds onto hope like a dog with a favorite bone, long past when it makes any sense.

“I always thought it would be,” he says with a tight shrug and pulls out his keys. “But it’s not our future anymore.”

“It can be,” Blaine says with earnest hope in his face, like it’s that easy. Like all Kurt has to do is say yes, and it will be wonderful and perfect like it used to be. Blaine _cheated_ on him and broke his heart; nothing can ever be the same between them. That dream is gone.

Well, no, the dream isn’t gone. That’s the problem. Kurt dreams about it, thinks about it at inopportune moments, works hard to forget it exists. He just _wishes_ it were gone. But the reality, that is gone. That was gone the moment Blaine slept with someone else, the moment Blaine threw away Kurt’s heart, Kurt’s trust, and every single thing that made the two of them special as a couple. It’s been a long road back just to this friendship they can share again. That’s as far as it’s ever going to go, no matter what either of them dreams.

Kurt just shakes his head; he doesn’t trust his voice. The pain isn’t fresh anymore, it doesn’t cut through him or make him feel hollowed out and empty, but it’s still hard to be neutral about it. He needs to keep his head and be mature; it’s the only way he can have Blaine in his life at all, and it had hurt too much when he’d shut him out.

“Kurt - “ To Kurt’s surprise, Blaine reaches out for his hand, capturing it in both of his own. Kurt looks down at them in disbelief and a little horror at how far this conversation seems to be going, then back up at Blaine’s face. “It _can_ be us. Why can’t it be? Because I hurt you so badly?”

Kurt’s eyes widen, because - “How is that even a question? _Yes_.” He tries to pull his hand back, but Blaine doesn’t let go.

“I know I did,” Blaine says. “I made a horrible, hurtful mistake, and I’m so sorry. I’ll never stop being sorry. But I’ve learned from it, about myself and about you. Being alone has taught me a lot.” He cradles Kurt’s hand, his thumb rubbing along Kurt’s knuckles, and takes a steadying breath. He looks right into Kurt’s eyes as he continues. “I’ve learned how much I love you. I thought I already knew that, I thought I already knew you were incredible and everything I want, but obviously I didn’t know it well enough. I do now. And I want to take every single day for the rest of my life to show you how I feel.”

“Blaine, it isn’t that simple,” Kurt replies. He doesn’t keep pulling on his hand, because that’s childish and being touched isn’t going to hurt him, but he’s getting sort of angry that Blaine’s putting him in this position at all. Hasn’t he been _clear_ about what he wants and doesn’t want? Hasn’t he said over and over again that they’re not going to be a couple? Hasn’t Blaine been _listening_ at _all_?

Blaine leans in closer, his eyes fixed on Kurt’s. “I know it’s complicated. I know it’s hard. But aren’t important things worth doing even when they’re hard?”

“Blaine,“ Kurt says, even more sharply. “We aren’t doing this.”

“You’ve fought for things you care about.” Blaine’s tone doesn’t harden, but his blind stubbornness is unmistakable. “You fought for NYADA. You fought for Nationals. You fought to have a voice at McKinley. You fought to be yourself. Why not fight for love?”

Kurt can feel the tension rising in his body, the icy chill of anger coming to the surface. “I don’t know, Blaine. Why would I fight for love with someone who threw it away? Why would I even want it again?”

“Because you love me,” Blaine replies, his voice shaking a little but his head held high. “I love you, and you love me. I know you do. You might not want to, but I know you do.”

Kurt wants to disagree with him. He wants to say he doesn’t. He wants to see the barb land in Blaine’s chest, just for a second. But he also doesn’t want to lie, and the words simply can’t form in his mouth. He tries to feel the truth in being free of loving Blaine. He tries to make it happen. But he can’t, because as much as he doesn’t want to, as much as he’s tried to distract and distance himself with work and NYADA and Adam, he _does_. So he can’t say anything at all.

Triumph rises on Blaine’s face, his hands clutching around Kurt’s and his eyes going bright. “I knew it,” he says. “Kurt, I knew it. I knew you did. That’s why - that’s why I’ve been wanting to do something big to make you admit it.”

“It doesn’t mean we should be together,” Kurt says quietly, feeling suddenly exhausted in the face of Blaine’s much more optimistic and unrealistic ebullience.

“Why not?” Blaine asks, like it’s as easy as that. Like love is just a good thing, a gift and a joy instead of a heavy anchor Kurt can’t seem to shed and move forward without dragging its weight behind him.

Kurt manages not to roll his eyes and says, very simply, “Because we _broke up_ , Blaine.”

“And we can get back together! You’re my soul mate. We’re supposed to be together, Kurt. I know we are.” Blaine pauses and checks himself, grimacing a little.

“You sound like a stalker in a Lifetime movie,” Kurt agrees.

Blaine lets out a laugh, and Kurt can’t help but smile at how well they still understand each other. “But I don’t mean it that way. I just mean that we’re perfect together. Why are we fighting that?”

“For one,” Kurt reminds him, his smile vanishing, “you cheated on me.”

Pain blooms in Blaine’s eyes at Kurt’s answer. “And you didn’t have time for _me_. We both made mistakes, even if I know mine were bigger. We both hurt each other. We can get past it.”

Kurt shakes his head and shakes his hand free, too. Once he would have believed in them being made for each other, but he’s learned. “You’re not the only boy in the world, Blaine. There are other options. There are other futures for us both.” He thinks of the boys who have flirted with him: interns at Vogue.com, Adam, his scene class partner, that guy on the subway who was either homeless or Zachary Quinto. There are so many options, so many potential partners, so many guys to flirt with without endangering his heart, so many who aren’t Blaine.

That none of them has never made him feel like Blaine used to make him feel - and still can, his heart whispers, traitor that it is - is irrelevant. He has to compare them not to the past but to how Blaine makes him feel in the _present_ , and that is that they should only be friends. It’s a friendship he cherishes and loves, one he’s happy to have, one he’s thrilled seems to be getting stronger and stronger, but it has to be only friendship. Because of Blaine. Because of what Blaine did.

And yet a part of Kurt could still sway into his welcoming arms, because Blaine will always and forever be a weak spot in his heart. He narrows his eyes, going colder at how tempted he feels, and pushes back. “And you know all about the other boys already,” he says to himself as much as Blaine, “because you’d found them even when we were still together.”

Sucking in a breath, Blaine looks like he’s been struck. He goes pale, and his eyes drop, then his cheeks color, dark in the dim light of the street lamps. He takes another, steadier breath and looks back up at Kurt again. “I did. And I’m sorry I did. But it taught me something you knew already, which is that we’re more than just two people who dated in high school. You’re the love of my life, Kurt, and that’s worth something to me. It’s worth trying when things seem hard.” He watches Kurt’s face, despair and determination warring in his own. “It’s worth me putting my heart out on the line here, even when you’re still saying no. Because I love you, and you love me.” He squares his shoulders, lifts his chin, and takes a small step toward him. “And I know you. I know how your heart works. I know how loyal you are. And I know what love means to you.” His voice drops to something intimate and painfully sincere, barely audible over the thundering of Kurt’s heart, even though he knows he’ll hear every one of these words in his mind for the rest of his life. Kurt doesn’t know how Blaine can just _say_ these things, not now. “I think what we have is worth it to you. You’re scared, and I understand that. I hurt you so badly,” Blaine says, the last word cracking. “I want to prove that you don’t have to be afraid I’ll hurt you again. I want to do anything you need. I just want _you_ , Kurt. All I want is you.”

The way he’s looking at Kurt makes Kurt want to walk away into the night. It makes him want to lash out, fight back, do anything so that Blaine’s not looking _into_ him and seeing all of the desire he tries to keep hidden, all of the fear, all of the desperate need he has to protect himself now because he’d never in a million years thought he’d have to worry about Blaine hurting him and had been ripped apart to his very core by what he did. He doesn’t want to go through that again, not with Blaine or with anyone. He wants nothing to do with it.

He wants love, yes, he aches for all of the beautiful, childish dreams they shared together, but he doesn’t think he can actually have it anymore. It can never be the same.

“Do you really think that you saying all of that makes up for what you _did_?” Kurt asks him. It comes out less harshly than he’d like, more an actual question than the accusation he means it to be.

Blaine shakes his head. “Nothing can make up for what I did.”

Kurt raises his eyebrows at that simple declaration. “Well, that’s a convincing argument,” he says, as dry as the desert, even that small bit of sarcasm helping him feel like he’s standing on his own two feet.

“I’m not trying to convince you,” Blaine says, swallowing and looking out over the dark parking lot for a moment. “Okay, I am, but I’m just trying to convince you to look into your heart. And mine. Because I’m sorry, so _very_ sorry - “ His voice goes low and soft, the perfect timbre to worm its way into Kurt’s heart. “ - and I love you. I want to be with you and prove to you I’ll never do anything like that again. I’d like to try. Can’t we just... try, Kurt?” His voice breaks at the end of the sentence, some of his sureness melting away, like he’d been certain all he had to do was put his heart out there so boldly.

Kurt takes a long, slow breath, because a part of him wants to take Blaine’s hand and his heart again. He wants to take what’s being offered. He wants it, he’s always wanted it, from the first minute he met Blaine he wanted it. He _wants_ everything they had, so much that his feelings are like a tangled string inside of him, endless knots and tension, with no ends to pull to make him free from it.

And yet it feels impossible to make that leap again. It feels impossible to trust him. He looks at Blaine’s face, and he’s as handsome as ever, he’s still the first boy who kissed him - the first one who mattered, anyway - he’s still the boy who smiled at him across a table at the Lima Bean and professed his love, he’s still the boy who led him into his bedroom and learned with him what wonderful things their bodies could do, he’s still the boy who listened and laughed and sang and dreamed with and supported him. He’s still the boy whose eyes make his pulse speed and whose smiles make Kurt’s mouth want to curve in reply.

But the problem is that he will also always be the boy who broke Kurt’s heart without warning and made him lose his best friend and so many of his dreams for the future in one fell swoop. He’s the boy who crushed him, when Kurt had been so _certain_ he was the safest person in his world beyond his dad.

Even on this night with stories of lasting love and an unexpected and heart-warming marriage proposal, even with everything between them getting so settled and strong that they can support each other without question again, that chasm between them feels far too big to bridge.

So Kurt pulls his car key out on its ring and says, right into Blaine’s eyes, not to hurt him but to be honest with him, “I don’t think I can.”

“You don’t _think_ \- “ Blaine starts, like he’s grasping onto the words instead of the meaning of the sentence.

“Blaine,” Kurt says softly, shaking his head and pretending this doesn’t hurt his heart all over again, because just because it’s the right thing to do doesn’t mean he can’t wish it weren’t.

Blaine’s face crumples for just a second as Kurt unlocks his door, but he stops himself, smooths out his expression, and nods. “Okay,” he rasps out. “I - Okay.” He rubs his hand over his pocket in an odd show of nerves. “I was going to ask you - but I guess it doesn’t matter now.” He takes a step back. “Have a good night.”

His tone of voice, so flat and easy, stops Kurt in his tracks.

He should be relieved that Blaine’s finally accepting what he wants. And he is. But there’s something in the way Blaine is keeping his head up, staying polite, and retreating behind his shell that makes Kurt’s fingers go numb, because he knows what it means. He knows that Blaine. He’s never seen it turned on himself, but he knows that one, the one who is so desperately hurt that all he can do is what is expected of him. It’s the Blaine of Mr. Anderson, of Mr. Schuester sometimes, of Finn last year. It’s the Blaine who tucks his feelings away, smiles perfectly, and doesn’t show even a hint of how he’s bleeding inside.

It is _not_ the Blaine Kurt wants him to be. It’s not the Blaine Kurt would ever want to turn him into. It’s a mask, not a person. It absolutely guts him to see that Blaine standing there because of _him_.

He can’t do that to Blaine. He can’t be the kind of person who hurts him like that, so much that Blaine can’t even be himself anymore. No, he just can’t. He cares about him too much to do that.

“It’s chilly out here,” Kurt says softly, an olive branch he didn’t even know he wanted to offer a minute ago. “Do you want to sit in my car while we talk?”

Blaine blinks in shock, and the shell cracks around him and holds for a moment before disappearing like it had never been there. He stares for a second, like he can’t believe the offer, and then he’s nodding a little too eagerly. “Okay.” He opens Kurt’s door for him, closing it behind him as Kurt settles behind the steering wheel, and then rushing around the car to get in the front passenger seat.

There’s a long, awkward moment of silence as Kurt folds his hands in his lap and Blaine kind of stares at him. A beam of light from the headlights of a turning car makes its way across their faces, a moment of clarity to take each other in, and then leaves them back in the relative dimness of the parking lot’s lights once more.

“Kurt - “ Blaine begins finally.

Kurt cuts him off; Blaine’s said enough, and it has to be his turn. As much as he’s tried to stay distant, for both of their sakes, it’s not working anymore. If they’re going to get into the thick of it, if Blaine’s going to lay his heart on the line, then Kurt needs to be honest, too. “You haven’t once asked me what I want,” he says. “Not for months. You’ve assumed you knew, you’ve told me what you thought, you’ve gone out of your way to try to persuade me, but you haven’t _asked_.”

Blaine’s brows furrow, and his eyes go soft with utter contrition. “I - “

“Listen,” Kurt says, because the last thing he wants are more excuses and explanations, or even more heartfelt apologies. “You need to listen to me, Blaine.”

Turning and leaning his shoulder against his seat, Blaine says quietly, “Okay.”

Kurt takes a breath, finds his calm center, and tries to find the right words. They need to talk. They need to get onto the same page, because as mixed as his emotions are about Blaine he needs them to be okay. “I don’t want this to be hard for us,” he says. “But our relationship is over. It has to be. I know we both cross the line into flirting. I know it’s complicated. I'll always care about you, I’ll always _love_ you, I’ll always think you’re ridiculously handsome even when you’re not making an effort - “ He mirrors Blaine’s faint grin. “ - but we're just friends now. You know that."

“I'm sorry, Kurt, but I don't know that,” Blaine says with a shake of his head.

Kurt sighs, but before he can work up a cloud of frustration, Blaine continues.

“I’m not trying to argue with you, but I don’t,” Blaine says. “Maybe I haven’t asked you what you wanted, but I’ve still _seen_ you. I’ve talked with you, I’ve danced with you, and I’ve even had the pleasure of sleeping with you again - “ Kurt looks away for a second, wishing his cheeks weren’t heating with the memory of that night. “ - and I know you wouldn’t have let me do any of that with you if you didn’t want it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, Blaine.” It doesn’t have to, anyway. It doesn’t have to mean anything big and important. Isn’t that what he’s been telling himself?

“Yes, it _does_ ,” Blaine insists. “I know you.”

Kurt squares his jaw, ready to argue, but he still can’t lie to Blaine. And Blaine does know him. Blaine knows that Kurt’s heart isn’t always wise, but it is always what’s driving him.

“I care about you, and I love you, and I want to be with you,” Blaine says, leaning a little toward him. “I want to be in your life. Every day. For the rest of our lives. I’m ready to get down on one knee and promise you that.” He clears his throat and rubs his hand against his pocket. “Though I don’t have a ring on me this second.”

His cheeks flushing again, this time in embarrassment at how much he once would have loved that kind of big gesture, at how much part of him still does but only _part_ , Kurt quietly asks, “Please don’t.” He doesn’t want to have to say no. He doesn’t want to have to say yes. Either way it would be horrible.

Blaine makes a little negating motion with his head and says like he’s regrouping, “Okay, but you love me, too. I don’t know why we can’t make it work."

Kurt spreads his hands helplessly, because there are so many reasons they can’t that he can’t even think of them all. “I don’t even know how we would. We can’t go back. Too much has happened. I have no idea how we could.” That little voice in the back of his mind whispers that the problem might be that it would be too easy instead of too hard to go back to what they were, and they could end up right back in heartbreak again.

That can’t happen. He can’t do it again. He can’t.

“Do you want to?” Blaine asks, subdued but watching him without wavering in the faint yellow light of the parking lot. “If you knew it would end up perfectly, would you want to try again? Would you want to figure it out?”

Blaine is looking at him with such sureness, such utter and absolute sureness in him, in _them_ , that it feels like it’s shaking the very foundations of Kurt’s life. Blaine is so _sure_. Blaine, who has been so insecure, isn’t anymore, not about either of them.

Kurt knows he’s a fool to be thinking about the question, he knows he’s a fool to love him, but he is and he does. He can’t help it. He’s never been able to help it.

If he says no, he gets to go on with his life. He gets new New York boys. He gets flirting and quirky city dates and a safe, safe heart.

And if Kurt says yes, he gets Blaine.

He gets the chance for grand romance and/or a horribly broken heart _again_. But it would be with Blaine, who used to be everything to him. Who could so easily be again.

He gets those thrilling duets, those well-worn hair gel arguments, and the continuing saga of those Hudson-Hummel-Anderson cutthroat game nights that made Carole ban Pictionary from the house. He gets a lifetime of Blaine’s special grilled cheese sandwiches, of impromptu and often inappropriate serenades, and of video game nights with Sam and Finn conflicting with _Downton Abbey_.

In the future, he gets Blaine’s smile to wake up to in the mornings year after year, a child with curly dark hair to run to him when he gets home from work, and that pair of favorite chairs in the nursing home to rock in side-by-side when they’re old.

He gets someone who understands him, who supports him, and who absolutely adores him and everything they can be together.

If Kurt says yes, he gets - maybe - the future he’s been dreaming of for years, but it comes at such a risk. Such a huge, terrifying, stupid, stupid risk.

He wishes from the deepest recesses of his heart that future weren’t so tempting. Because it’s not just a wonderful future, but it’s a future with _Blaine_ , the man he loves so much he still doesn’t know how to use his heart in any other way.

"I don't think it's a good idea," Kurt finally whispers, looking up helplessly into Blaine’s beautiful eyes. Because it isn’t, it isn’t, it so isn’t, not when it can and probably will end in heartbreak all over again, because Blaine was supposedly sure of his heart before, too, and he’d still broken Kurt’s.

"That's not a no,” Blaine says.

Kurt is silent for a long moment and then says, against his will, "I know." It’s _Blaine_.

Blaine resettles himself in his seat and asks gently, without pushing, without demanding, just asks, “Kurt? What do you want?”

_I want not to hurt when I think of what happened. I want not to have to fight to stop being so aware of you. I want to stop missing you. I want to stop dreaming about you. I want to stop comparing other boys to you. I want to stop caring so much about you, about us. I want things not just to be easier but to be_ easy, he thinks. But he can’t say all of that; he doesn’t want to. So he says what’s at the core of it all. “I want to be over you.”

Blaine doesn’t flinch or immediately grab onto the hope in that sentence, though his breath catches for a second. And then he says, still so calm, the way he almost always used to be when they were discussing important topics, “But you aren’t.”

Kurt fills his lungs and says as he exhales, a sigh and an admission and a promise and a deep, deep regret, “No, I’m not.”

His expression as serious as Kurt has ever seen it, Blaine holds out his hand over the console between the seats and waits for Kurt to take it. “I’m in love with you, Kurt Hummel,” he says softly. “We can take it as slowly as we need to, we will talk about everything, and I promise you I will do anything you want me to do. But I love you, and you love me. Can we try to figure this out together?”

Kurt wants to say no. He knows it’s the smart choice. If he says no, there’s no chance of being hurt by Blaine ever again. Their friendship won’t survive it. _He_ might not survive it. It seems so foolish to consider any other answer.

Yet Kurt looks down at Blaine’s hand and knows without touching it that it’s soft. He knows its cuticles are neatly trimmed. He knows how it sweats when Blaine is nervous and tightens when Blaine is excited. He knows how its fingers feel on his skin, in his hair, inside of him. He knows how there’s a scar on the pad of Blaine’s little finger, obscuring the whorls of his fingerprint. He knows so much about that hand, and so much about the rest of Blaine attached to it, and he wonders why he thinks Blaine’s heart is so foreign to him when he feels like he knows everything else.

Blaine’s still his best friend, his best support, his best everything. He fits into his life, his heart, and his family. He knows Kurt’s dark secrets and doesn’t just accept them but loves them as a part of him. No matter what has happened between them, it seems crazy not to trust him with his heart when Kurt trusts him - again, still - with everything else.

Because Kurt _loves_ him. It might not be wise, it might have changed from the first fire of youth to something more tempered and mature, he might be fighting against the very idea of it being true at all, but he does, and to his despair he always will.

This year in New York has taught him a lot about love, and one of the greatest lessons - for good or ill - is that no matter how many people he meets Kurt’s never going to love anyone else like he does Blaine. It’s okay, he can live without it, but he’s never going to be loved as well by anyone but Blaine, either. Blaine is special. He just is. He’s sweet, he’s intense, he’s warm, charming, kind, and honest.

Even when Blaine cheated on him, he didn’t lie, and Kurt knows he isn’t lying about his feelings now. If Blaine really does want to prove himself, if Blaine really is offering Kurt a true second chance at reaching anything like those dreams of the future they’d dreamed together, then Kurt is finding it very hard to convince himself to say no.

And looking up from his hand into Blaine’s deep, love-filled eyes, the ones that have made him feel the happiest and safest he ever has been, Kurt wonders why he’s even trying when his heart refuses to give up what it wants. The part of him that’s hurt and scared, the part of him that will always remember, is never going to make the rest of what he wants go away.

He’s always going to want this, no matter how hard he tries not to. And if he’s being honest with himself, he can’t look into Blaine’s eyes and say that he doesn’t want to stop fighting himself over it.

He’d really like to stop fighting, stop being so careful and contained, and start living again, really living, nothing held back. Even if it hurts.

And maybe it won’t, because Blaine doesn’t want it to hurt, either. There isn’t much the two of them can’t do if they put their minds to it.

So he takes a breath, lifts his hand, and slowly puts it in Blaine’s. An electric current goes up his arm as soon as they touch, and he wonders for a second what’s happening and if he’s made a horrible mistake, but then he remembers that he always felt that way when he touched Blaine, always, always, always, and his eyes flick up in wonder to see Blaine staring back at him.

“Really?” Blaine asks in a cracking whisper, his hand curling around Kurt’s tightly enough to hurt.

Kurt nods, and he says around his heart hammering in his throat, “Since when does Kurt Hummel go for the safe choice?”

Blaine’s face breaks into the most gorgeous, ecstatic smile, even as his eyes start to shine with tears. Without warning, like he can’t stop himself, he leans over the console toward him and gives Kurt a short, firm, off-center kiss before he jerks back.

“Is that okay?” he asks. “I’m sorry. I mean, that’s okay, right? I don’t want to assume - “

“Blaine,” Kurt says steadily, because he knows once Blaine starts second-guessing himself they could be here all day. He has to work to sound calm when his pulse is leaping just from that brief touch of Blaine’s mouth. “I don’t know how this is going to work. I don’t know how to feel okay. I don’t know if we can do this at all. But I do know that if you’re going to be my boyfriend I expect you to kiss me.”

“I want to,” Blaine says in a rush. “To be your boyfriend. But also to kiss you.”

“Well, then,” Kurt says, and if it takes courage he’s never been one to shy away from things that scare him, “let’s do that.”

“Being boyfriends? Or kissing?”

Kurt starts to grin, because it’s not often that he’s seen suave, calm Blaine be almost goofy with emotion, and it’s one of the things he treasures about him. God, and he gets to have it again. He gets to have all of him. Something in his chest twists free, leaving him light-headed, giddy, and more than a little scared.

“Both,” he says, and Blaine smiles back, just as giddily, before they’re swaying back together over the console.

When Kurt gets his mouth back on Blaine’s he can feel immediately that it’s so different from what it was at Valentine’s Day, he can tell from the first touch, because instead of holding back his emotions he’s flying with them, as much as fear of what will happen is mixed into the whole complicated ball of feelings. This is his to have, not a fling, not just a night, not just an incomplete, shuttered, and mostly physical connection, but all of this is _his_. He doesn’t have to hold back. He doesn’t have to pretend. He can just have it, if they can repair everything that was broken.

“Kurt,” Blaine says reverently, his hand cupping the side of Kurt’s face and sending new sparks of awareness across Kurt’s skin. Kurt draws in a sharp breath, lost and overwhelmed and dazzled and already ready for more.

But as much as it’s terrifying down to his bones to think of Blaine having any sort of emotional power over him again, Kurt knows that touch, he knows that sound, and he _knows_ Blaine.

He holds onto Blaine’s hand for dear life, takes a leap across that divide between them, and hopes that Blaine will be there on the other side to catch him.

“I love you, too,” Kurt tells him, and he drinks in the texture of Blaine’s cheek against his palm and kisses him until the words don’t hurt to think about anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think there are spoilers to be had right now, but if there are, I don't want to know them. I remain spoiler-free! Thanks for your help with that! :)


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